Collarbone check and that jacket again

I need to talk about my collarbones again. I love them. It has been so much fun watching the definition increase over the last several months, and I constantly catch myself touching them. I just did a side-by-side comparison picture with the picture I posted back in November:



And maybe I went a little crazy on the picture taking and the goofy faces:



Excuse my insanity.

Another thing I would like to revisit is my post entitled Why do I want to eat crap?, in which I lament the craving of sugary items and other healthfully detrimental habits. I was re-reading this post recently, and I suddenly became aware of just how far I have come. While I definitely still have a desire for sweet things now and then, it is no longer something I think about all the time, and beyond that, if it is sitting in front of me and I am not hungry, I don't automatically start to eat it anymore! I also stop eating before I am full, every single time. I know when I have had enough, and I no longer have an irrepressible urge to keep eating. I also now tend to favor the taste of more healthful foods.

This is a GIANT breakthrough!!! Food has become a non-issue for me! I can't even remember when that was the case before, and it doesn't make sense to me why it was the case for so long. Why, when there were issues to deal with on the inside, did I turn to food? I don't get it, and yet, it ruled my life for the last ten years or so. But food always masked whatever problem arose for a short time before just adding the misery of being fat and self-conscious, and not being able to control my eating. How could I have let that deceptive "comfort" be what I ran to instead of relying on God to bring me through? As I have deepened my relationship with Him, I have come to depend on His comfort and grace to get me through life. Not that all of life is hard... a lot of the time it is quite fantastic! But there are always difficult times to deal with, and they will continue to occur.

For instance, my biggest struggle is the fact that I am still single. More than anything else in this world, I have wanted to be married and have a family since I was a little girl, and I never imagined that I would still be single at 31. And I also don't understand how I hear from a large majority of the people I know how awesome I am and what a great wife and mom I'll be, and yet, here I am, alone. That was a huge driving force in my eating in the past, and not only did it not help, but it made the situation worse as I became incredibly unattractive and miserable. Nobody wants to be with a miserable person! At some point, I started turning to God instead of the food, and that has made all the difference in my contentedness. I know that He has an amazing plan for my life, and as He is the one that made me the way I am, with this incredible desire for a husband and family, I believe that He will bless me with that in the future. And I'm guessing, since God has been filling my heart with a desire to go visit different countries to work with orphans, that the man God has for me will have a similar passion, and that is so exciting to me! I wonder how much of my life I have wasted, when I could have being working in that field already, all because I was focused on myself and food! Being miserable really sucks the life out of a person. So now when I start to get overwhelmed with sadness that I am not married yet, instead of having a pity party complete with a mound of junk food, I pour my heart out to God and let Him deal with it. And I have peace. And visible collarbones.

So to lighten up this suddenly heavy post, I will end with a fun story and my new favorite picture. You know my green jacket that I wrote about here? Last Friday it was pouring rain, so I wore it. I was at my brother Brian and his wife Sarah's house, and when I put the jacket on to leave, I zipped it up and pulled it away from my body to demonstrate how much extra room there was. I said, "I feel like Sarah could almost fit in here with me!" so she tried. At first she wanted to see if she could get in while it was on me and closed, but she shimmied up as far as my waist before there was a pause followed by, "Oh. I forgot about your boobs." We all cracked up and we tried again, this time by opening the jacket. I believe there was only a space of about four inches that prohibited the closing of the jacket, and it used to fit me perfectly. Now that's what I call progress!

Sitting pretty

The other day I was sitting on my bed doing who the heck knows what... probably playing Draw Something or contemplating the delicious Pineapple Stuffing I would be making for Easter, or thinking about all the guys that I think are cute and would make good husbands someday, and wondering who will be mine... when I realized that I had my knees drawn up to my chest.

So what, right? Yeah, not so much. More like, WOOHOO!!! My giant belly used to get in the way of my legs coming anywhere CLOSE to my chest! So, as you may have suspected, I took a picture of myself that way. Welcome to the way I look in the morning (although I totally have mascara on from the day before) and the awesome fuzzy warm pajama pants my mom bought for me when it was 40 degrees in my room at night. I know a certain Jennifer who will be super jelvis (yes, jelvis. Definition: a) Jealous of Elvis, or b) Jealous of something Elvis would have liked. He clearly would have mistaken my pants for blue suede, and therefore would have liked them.) because the pants have ladybugs on them.



So that's all I wanted to say. It's exciting every time I find something new that I couldn't previously do!

Move it or lose it!

Nothing motivates quite as well as a little friendly competition, especially when money is involved. Since January 1st, I have been part of a weight loss competition group on Facebook, which has been a great source of motivation, with weigh ins every week, and a buy in of $5, to be paid to the winner at the end.

Our first 90 day challenge just ended on Sunday, and I didn't meet the goal I set at the beginning, which was to lose 40 pounds. I did, however, lose 21 pounds in that time, which was the same amount the winner lost, but since she started out 72 pounds lighter than me, her percentage lost was obviously higher. I didn't mind losing to her, though, because she's really great! That was one of the best parts of this group: I met some really awesome girls who are now my friends, and I'm excited to hang out with them again soon!

Part of the reason I didn't lose as much as I wanted to during the last challenge is that I didn't go to the gym very often in that time. School is keeping me extra busy this semester, but starting now I will be making more of an effort to work out several times a week. I just reconnected with an old friend from Tucson who now lives ten minutes away from me, and she also happens to already have a membership at 24 Hour Fitness, where I go. She has a lot of experience with personal trainers and she's gonna help me whip myself into shape! I love having someone to go to the gym with, and I'm happy to be able to spend time with this friend again. When we got together on Saturday night, we hadn't seen each other in ten years! We have gym plans every day this week while I'm on Spring Break, and that should be a really great jump start for the next challenge, which started on Sunday when the last one ended.

The goal I set for this challenge was to lose 31 pounds. I know that with the help of my group and my new gym buddy, this should be a breeze! I'm even gonna try to beat my own goal and lose more than 31 pounds, but it won't bother me if I don't. I know that all of this extra weight will be gone soon, and the most important thing is that I'm getting healthy and that I feel amazing! My life has changed so much in the last six months, and I go around with a perpetual smile on my face. I have always been a pretty happy person, but the joy I feel now that I've broken free from this stronghold that my weight had over my life is incredible!

A few extra things:

1. I'm taking a friend to get his driver's license in a few weeks, and at the same time, I think I'll get a new license picture and change my listed weight. When I got my license, I weighed 60 pounds more than I said I did, and now I weigh 19 pounds less than what is listed! So I'm gonna lie again and say I weigh 180, because pretty soon, I really will!

2. I put on the red dress again a few days ago, and I think I need to officially retire the dress. I had to hold onto a handful of material at the back to make it tight.



Compare that picture to this one of me wearing the dress on Christmas day. Alex and I decided that we needed to dress formally for Christmas last year. Haha!



I think I should go try on beautiful dresses this week. I can't afford to buy one, but it will be fantastic to try on dresses that they have in the store because now I'm actually a size that they carry! I love that I still like to play dress up as much as I did when I was a little girl. Some things never change. Wanting to feel beautiful is something that is built into girls, and that desire will never go away, no matter how old I get.

Out with the old

Just to be cliche: Out with the old, in with the new! And also pretty soon it will be: Out with the old, in with the really old.

Let me explain. I have this thin pink sweatshirt that I used to wear constantly. It's perfect for cool weather, it's not too bulky to shove in my purse, and hey... it's pink. I'm not gonna lie, I love pink. A lot of my friends make fun of me for it, but I'm embracing my girlyness and there's not really much that anyone can do about it. I also like to cook and bake and watch extremely girly movies, through which I will most likely cry while I endure more mocking by my friends. Tonight I was with my friend Rocio and I mentioned something about a guy that I think is particularly cool and Jesus-loving, and also cute, and I could physically hear her rolling her eyes. I also happen to be wearing pink today, so I'm sure that added to the element of disgust for her. Oh yeah, pink! That was what I was talking about!

So anyway, this sweatshirt has sort of been through the ringer, and my mom has been trying to get me to get rid of it for years. She hates that it looks perpetually dirty, and that it's all stretched out. It doesn't even really look pink anymore, but I have been putting off throwing it away until I could find something similar with which to replace it. I never wear it anywhere except the gym anyway.

I was at Target recently, and found one I was gonna buy until I saw the $30 price tag. I am quite marvelous at finding good deals and not spending a lot of money, and in my mind, $30 can get a whole lot more than one sweatshirt. A few years ago, I bought an entire summer wardrobe for about $120, and I still wear those ten dresses. So I continued on my quest for a replacement sweatshirt, and found the perfect one at Walmart the other night for only ten dollars! I tried on the 16-18, which fit, but I didn't want to buy something that would fit now and be big in another few months, so I tried on the 12-14, and although it was a little snug, it looked fine, and I decided to get it. I also found a pair of size 18 jeans for $15, so I got those, and I'm super ecstatic to be in a size 18!! I haven't been able to wear an 18 since I WAS 18! In fact, this was the first time I have been able to shop in the regular section of a store in a really long time. I almost cried.

Here's the old sad dull pink stretched out sweatshirt:


And the new one. I totally feel thin when I wear it:


The size 18 jeans:


And there you have the "in with the new" segment. As far as the "in with the really old", perhaps you remember the post with all the pictures of how fat I used to be, which you can read here if you haven't seen it. I claimed there that my goal was to fit nicely into my high school prom dress again, and while it still doesn't zip, it does sit on the right place on my waist, which is a huge improvement over the last time I tried it on.

Here's what it looks like now:


So there you go! I'll try that dress on again in a couple months. In the meantime, I'll keep claiming "I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me" (Philippians 4:13), because I know that it is only by His strength that I have come as far as I have. I could never do it on my own! Believe me, I tried.

Ribcage

I was inspecting myself in the mirror the other day to see what new changes have occurred. My waist is smaller, my collar bones are more defined, my chin is just a chin and not a chinny chin chin (like that of the little piggies. It totally used to be), and my pants are continually getting looser. These are all things of which I was already aware, but I was pleasantly surprised when I sucked in my stomach as far as it could go and found something I had not seen in probably twelve years:

I actually saw the shape of my ribcage! Not that I could see the individual bones, like on my cousin Jack who I am convinced could go as a skeleton for Halloween with no costume whatsoever, but my stomach was actually concave in the middle up by my ribs! Definitely not lower down, but that flab will be a lot harder to get rid of. I think I'm just gonna have to cut it off with a chainsaw. :/

There is no way I'm posting a picture of my bare stomach on here so that you all can see my ribs. I'm definitely not ready for that. However, I did take a sideways shot while sucking in, so I'll post that.

First, here's one where I'm not sucking in:


And then the sucking-in one:


And one from the other day of my profile, which I usually hate because of all my chin fat, but that's almost completely gone!!


I currently weigh the same amount I did when I got home from Germany on this very day twelve years ago, and that fact feels amazing! I'm down 108 pounds from my heaviest weight, and I would still like to lose 62 to reach my ultimate goal. My next mini-goal, however, is to be in the 100s again, which I plan to accomplish by the end of April. I was 18 the last time I weighed less than 200, and the other night when I saw my friend Rebecca who has known me since I was eight, she said I look like I'm 18 again, so I guess it truly isn't that far off!

It's time for new pants again.

Diet Shmiet

I don't believe in diets.

People probably think, "No wonder you're fat!" but I say to them: you are clearly oblivious to the fact that I have lost 105 pounds without cutting a single thing completely out of my diet. Go right ahead eating your twigs and berries, and while I admire your discipline, I'm gonna go eat that cake. And some macaroni and cheese. Because it's delicious and I love it and I would miss it too much if I never got to eat it, and then I would go crazy one day and go buy a giant amount and eat too much of it and gain 10 pounds in one sitting, and then it will have been so delicious and I will have been deprived for so long that I'll continue to eat that way until I'm orbiting the sun as a mini planet because I will have gotten so ginormously fat and we can just start calling me Pluto and I can replace the sadly de-planeted Pluto because I will be larger than the orginal and classify as an actual planet. I can keep going with that run-on sentence scenario if you'd like, but I think you get the point.

That's not to say I eat that stuff all the time. And I definitely don't eat as much as I think I want. That's how I DID get fat in the beginning. It was like, "Oh look! A giant bag of delicious candy! I think I'll eat the whole thing today and buy another one tomorrow!" Ew. How did I not continually make myself physically ill? I suppose I did, just not in the barfing my guts out way. Instead, I more than doubled my size and drowned myself in misery all in the name of my taste buds and a lack of self control. Also it was a defense mechanism to cover up stuff going on inside me that I finally learned to deal with as I gave God control of my life. Aaaah. Can you hear the relief? I feel so much better!

So yes, if there is a big family meal or a birthday celebration, or a day where I just really want some ice cream, I eat that stuff without a second thought! I just eat a small portion, and make sure I have lots of healthful options to go along with it!

Some food routines I follow: (I almost called them rules, but they're not. I don't like to break rules, and I need to be able to break out of these habits every once in a while)

*I drink a ton of water. I used to have at least one soda per day, but when I got serious about becoming healthy, I decided not to drink my calories. I'll still have a soda now and then, if it's part of a meal that I buy somewhere, or if I really want one, but I usually just stick to water. This cuts down hugely on sugar and calories, and even if I had done nothing else different in my diet, I believe that change alone would have brought about some weight loss. I carry a water bottle with me everywhere, and try to fill it four times a day. When I don't drink enough water, I feel very bloated.

*I make sure to eat breakfast. I hate getting up any earlier than I have to, so for about ten years I completely skipped breakfast, but that is detrimental to a metabolism. In order for your metabolism to work as intended during the day, it must be awoken with a good breakfast. I often eat 1/2 cup of oatmeal with raisins for breakfast (and I add a little brown sugar and milk), or some scrambled eggs, or a grapefruit and some string cheese. None of those things are difficult to make, although eating a grapefruit is ridiculously time consuming. I always lose more weight when I'm on a grapefruit kick, though, although I'm really not sure if it's because it's a great weight loss tool, or because it just takes so long to eat and I burn more calories cutting the stupid thing up! Either way, though, awesome breakfast.

*I don't really have a set lunch, but I try to be smart about it. I love getting a $5 footlong sub at Subway and eating half for lunch one day and the other half either for the next day's lunch or for dinner that night if I'm gonna be gone all day. I load it with spinach, tomatoes, pickles and olives, and just a little mayo. So many people cut out all condiments and salad dressings when trying to lose weight, but it's important to eat your greens with some element of fat. You need fat in your diet!

*I always try to start my dinner off with a salad, and I stay away from iceberg lettuce, which has absolutely no nutritional value. Dark leafy greens are the best for you! And eating your salad first aids in digestion. I never use diet dressings, because they taste horrible, but I don't use a lot of whatever I decide to have. It does not need to be saturated in flavor for me to enjoy my salad, and I am very thankful for that fact. I know there are lots of people out there who hate salad!

*I stay away from white flour. It is really bad for you, and wheat options are pretty good! Maybe not at first, but it doesn't take that long to get used to them. I was actually raised on whole grains, so it's a natural choice for me. But again, if there's a food with white flour that someone is serving me, or that I want to eat, I'll have it every once in a while. No big deal.

*I consciously take smaller portions than I think I want. If you have more on your plate than you are hungry for, you'll probably end up eating it anyway, but if you don't take enough to begin with and you're still hungry after eating what you've taken, you can always get more. My stomach has shrunk a LOT, and it took me a while to get used to taking smaller portions, but now I do it automatically, and I almost never go back for seconds.

*It is so important to eat small snacks during the day to keep your body from freaking out and going into starvation mode (storing your food as fat just in case you don't get enough calories), so I like to keep a bag of almonds with me at all times. A serving size is 21-22 almonds, and while that seems like such a small amount, it is actually the perfect thing to tide you over until your next meal. I also like to have a string cheese or an orange as a snack. Or some popcorn, popped on the stove with just some salt.

*I stop eating three hours before going to bed.

These eating routines are easy to follow, and bring excellent results without much effort. In losing weight, it is actually more important to watch your food intake than it is to exercise a lot. Exercise is still important, but if you want to start making life changes and you currently don't eat well AND don't exercise, just start to make changes in your diet, and add the exercise in a few weeks down the line. Too many changes at once can be overwhelming. I know people who have made major food and diet changes all at once, and admire their self control, but it never stuck when I tried to do it that way. I stepped up my activity level when I started eating healthfully, but I didn't go to the gym and become the Hard Core Fitness K8 (you're right, Nicky, K8 is way more tough!) that I am now until I had already lost some weight and I was ready to step up my game.

Speaking of games, today I'm wearing the sweatshirt from my 8th grade AYSO soccer team, and it fits normally. Not that I was this size when I was 13... It was big on me back then.

Pep-talk

I took some pictures of my progress the other day, and among them was a dreaded sideways shot. Those are usually the ones that make me want to curl up and die, but I was shocked at how grossed out I was not! To show how much my body has changed, I put the new side view picture next to one from mid-September:



And a front view:



I feel like I'm not losing weight fast enough though. I lost forty pounds so quickly, and then it has been sort of slow going since November. I did give in to the Christmas Fats, and then re-lost those twelve pounds, and I have lost another five pounds since then, but I am a little discouraged, to be honest. I want it to always be easy and quick, and when it's not, I feel like I'm letting myself down. So here's a pep talk for myself:

Self. You're not gaining. You're not even at a plateau! You've just slowed down a little because you're SO BUSY this semester and you can't go to the gym every day. And that's okay, because it's just for a season. You're very active now, and after you ran across that field yesterday you were breathing almost completely normally! You're STILL MAKING PROGRESS!!! It's actually better to lose weight slowly and keep it off than to drop a giant subcutaneous chunk all at once and then regain because you can't maintain your crazy methods of loss. Trust me (or you, we're the same person), you're still doing a good job, and you look FANTASTIC!!! Also, although your weight is only down 5 pounds more than it was before Christmas, with the gaining and re-loss of the Christmas Fats, you have actually lost seventeen pounds since January 1st. So that's not as slow as it seems!!! Oh, but you need to drink more water. You're totally slacking there. End Pep-talk.

Okay, I feel better.